Buyers beware! For about a year, True Visions in Thailand has been showing a large number of ads for the travel search site Trivago.

Trivago is a German company bought by the huge Expedia group five years ago. Rather like hotelscombined.com, the site informs potential consumers that it searches through a million and more prices by comparing websites before offering the best deal on the net. Only it has now been found out. Those prices are very often not the best available rates. In a court case instigated by an Australian watchdog organisation, it is now being sued.

The German company . . . was reported on Sunday to have admitted in court documents that it led consumers to “form an erroneous belief” about data. It said top offers listed on its search page were actually based on the amount of advertising fee received from hotels, and not those with the lowest prices . . .

In August, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission lodged a case against Trivago for falsely claiming that its advertised hotel deals were the lowest rates. The case will head to Australia’s federal court later this month and Trivago faces millions in fines over misleading advertising.